Sword of Destiny swings

Netflix isn’t reporting US theatrical numbers for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, but at home the director is named an honorary awardee for the Asian Film Awards.

Following some brouhaha some time back, when Netflix announced that Sword of Destiny would open simultaneously in theatres and on Netflix, several US exhibitors made their feelings clear by refusing to take the film. The Hollywood Reportersuggests the lack of reporting numbers is possibly because they don’t look good.

There were many rumours of dissatisfaction during production here, and the release – announced for August 2015 – was pushed back six months without explanation.

Sword of Destiny opened reasonably in theatres in China, where Netflix isn’t a thing. It didn’t come close to competing with Stephen Chow’s Chinese New Year release The Mermaid, which has now become China’s all-time box office champ. By 1 March it had earned US$32 million in China, producers’ share of which comfortably covers its production costs.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny

Sword of Destiny director Yuen Woo-Ping (pictured, top), who was Ang Lee’s action director on the 2000 Crouching Tiger, Hidden, was yesterday announced one of two people who’ll receive Lifetime Achievement awards at this year’s Asian Film Awards. The Awards will be presented at the ceremony in Macau on 17 March.

Yuen is being honoured for the 100+ titles on which he’s worked, 60+ as action director, 30+ as director. His body of work includes 1978’s Drunken Master, the film that brought Jackie Chan’s comedic kung fu style to mainstream attention, Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Wong Kar-Wai’s Ip Man biopic The Grandmaster.

Yuen will be honoured alongside veteran Japanese actress Kiki Kirin, recently seen on the international film festival circuit in Kore-eda Hirokazu’s 2013 Like Father Like Son and Kawase Naomi’s 2015 An.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny screens here on Netflix. As an aside, we’re very pleased to discover today that it’s not only small media organisations like SCREENZ that Netflix can’t be bothered to respond to.